The Failure of the Knickerbocker Theatre

The writer is not familiar with what may have been published in England concerning the sad event which occurred in our national capital more than a year ago, namely, the collapse of the roof of the Knickerbocker Theatre, at Washington, DC., when about a hundred people were killed. He is familiar, however, with the fact that in nearly every event of this sort there is a reason given out which is erroneous and yet is held to as the explanation of the failure, a standard error, so to speak, which cannot be shaken loose. There are many such standard errors, ideas that it is impossible to dissipate. For example, nearly everyone in the United States will tell you, that if a hole were bored vertically through the earth, it would come out in China-China which is in the same hemisphere (the northern) with this country.
Edward Godfrey